{"id":79911,"date":"2020-09-13T15:05:01","date_gmt":"2020-09-13T12:05:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=79911"},"modified":"2020-09-13T15:05:01","modified_gmt":"2020-09-13T12:05:01","slug":"psalms-davidic-or-not","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/psalms-davidic-or-not\/","title":{"rendered":"Psalms – Davidic Or Not?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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There are many opinions among the medieval exegetes regarding the authorship of the Book of Psalms. They range from Se`adyah Gaon (882-942), who assigned exclusive authorship to David, to Moshe haKohen Ibn Chiqatilla (Spain, 11<\/span>th<\/span> century) who, as cited by Ibn Ezra, allowed for the inclusion of psalms even from the Second Temple period.<\/span><\/p>\n

Se`adyah, in his introduction to Psalms, argued that those psalms that address events well beyond David\u2019s own lifetime\u2014such as \u201cBy the rivers of Babylon\u201d\u2014should be attributed to David\u2019s prophetic ability, as he declared of himself: \u201cThe spirit of God spoke through me\u201d (2 Samuel 23:2). He further maintained that any names appearing in superscriptions to the psalms other than David\u2019s are those of Levites to whom David gave them to be set to music and sung. He noted that all such names, including Asaf, Heiman, Yedutun, the Korahites, and even \u201cMoses, Man of God,\u201d belonged to Levites.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

We can find support for Se`adyah\u2019s rather extreme view in the statement of the tanna Rabbi Meir: \u201cAll the songs and praises recorded in the Book of Psalms were recited by David” (Pesachim 117a); yet, he certainly had an ulterior motive in championing it: his ongoing struggle against the Karaites. Those sectarians, who rejected talmudic authority, had confined their use of Psalms to prayer; by emphasizing its prophetic nature, Se`adyah was intent upon investing it with greater religious authority. Indeed, one of the points he made in his introduction was the comparison between the Torah and Psalms, each of which is divided into 5 books.<\/span><\/p>\n

From a pedagogical perspective, however, Psalms offers greater religious educational potential if it is expanded beyond David\u2019s idiosyncratic personal experience. Take psalms 57 and 142, which memorialize David\u2019s stay in a cave while hiding from King Saul (see 1 Samuel 24). Rather than regarding them as prayers evoked by David\u2019s particular circumstances, they may be viewed as the attempt of a later psalmist to describe his own feelings of depression, with the cave serving as a metaphor. In this regard, compare Ibn Ezra\u2019s comments on 2:1: \u201cIt appears to me that this psalm was composed by one of the psalmists (<\/span>meshorerim<\/span><\/em>) about David on the day of his coronation, wherefore it says: \u201cThis day have I brought you forth.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

This approach broadens the scope of Psalms considerably, allowing it to be regarded as an anthology of religious responses to life\u2019s challenges and the broadest spectrum of emotions: hope and despair, faith and doubt, victory and defeat, joy and sorrow, etc., rather than just those actually faced by David. Whenever I have been consulted on instruction in Tanakh, I have advised educators not to limit their selections to those chapters that are familiar from the <\/span>siddur<\/span><\/em>, but to broaden the scope of their Tehillim classes well beyond the standard liturgy.<\/span><\/p>\n

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